Wetland Resource Group Meeting March 9 1993

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use it as -a way of getting out of protecting those less important wetlands. I hope people do not think that H.R. 1330 is a rare ca#e, and that nobody would ever really get to the point where the lower categories of wetlands would not be protected. We do protect our Class IV wetlands. in New York State, but it's the category II through IV wetlands that, when we begin to have budget problems, people ask, "Can we stop reviewing the permit applications for Class II through IV wetlands ?" Why? Those are important wetlands. We have to cut back in our budget now in New York. In discussions about the cuts, I was recently asked, "What do you think would happen if we didn't delineate Class II through IV wetlands ?" The law says we're supposed to delineate them. It's our responsibility. In many situations, people are trying to stay out of the wetland. If we don't tell them where the wetland is, how are they going to stay out of Classification sets up artificial perceptions: "Class I wet- lands are sacrosanct." That's not the case. There's a lot of things you can do in a Class I wetland that are not going to negatively affect it. We frequently give road crossing per- mits to get people to the other side of the wetland. Selective timber cutting is also possible. There's a lot of things that can happen in Class I wetlands. Conversely, Class IV wet- lands are not necessarily up for grabs. They are not things that are not worthy of protection. Especially if you look at them within a cumulative context, or on a watershed basis — something that many classification systems fail to do. To have an accurate classification system is very costly. To actually go out and look at them all and gather the data you need to classify wetlands accurately would be cost -pro- hibitive. We would get through a small fraction of what we would have to do and throw up.our hands and say, this is crazy, we can't do this. If classification is going to have the predictability people tout classification systems for, it's going to have to be done up- front. We are going to have to tie it in with some sort of inventory system. That's how we have done it in New York. We've been inventory ing wetlands in New York since 1975, and we are not done yet. And we're talking about the first iterations, not reruns. You need to have clear distinctions among the categories in classification. You have to have some scientific basis for the cut -offs. If you talk about marshes versus swamps, that's usually a pretty good distinction. If you're talking about size distinctions, why 12.4 acres? Someone tosses a coin in the le gislature down at the elventh hour, it's late at night, nobody could stand arguing about it any more. That's how some of those decisions are made. And that, unfortunately, is going to be the kind of challenge H.R. 1330 will raise. If classifi- cation is tied to some all -or- nothing component of a man- agement or regulatory scheme, it will be worth people's effort to challenge the classification system and how it was set up. The 1990 wetland program bill that Governor Mario Cuomo sent to the legislature in New York State would have removed the requirement at the state level to classify wet- lands. That is not to mean we wouldn't assess wetland functions and values, but we would do it on a case -by -case basis, as people came in for a permit: what is the value of this wetland. what is the impact of this proposal, and how can we protect those functions and values? But for all of that negativism about classification, I do support classification when it is done within a regional 0 KIennNAI WFTLANDS NEWSLETTER context. Most states are much too large, with too much diversity. to be able to effectively categorize wetlands in the state context. We are actively involved in developing a SAMP, a regionalized planning initiatives in the Buffalo area of western New York. We are taking a close look at the, wetland resources out there and the problems in reconciling economic development and resource protection. Within that - management planning initiative, we may be classifying wet- lands. Regional classification will work because you are dealing with a smaller and much more homogeneous subset of the resource and you can take a closer look at it. It appears that wetlands in the Buffalo project area fall out into three categories: coastal wetlands along the Great Lakes, depres- sional wetlands, and riverine /riparian wetlands. They per- form very specific, distinct, clearly defined functions within those categories. There are also a lot of degraded wetlands in the area that were historically drained for agriculture. They have been abandoned and there is a potential for restoration. So that is another category — restorable wetlands. Very clean, very neat, very easy, very tight, and local people can see it and understand the distinctions. Within that [regional] context, I fully support classification. I think it's the only way you can truly build a management scheme at a local level that will mean something. In closing I would like to add that some other types of classification schemes — classification for management, or acquisition; taxonomic classifications that look at*etlands within an ecological context (a marsh versus a swamp, versus a bog) — have continued utility. Categorizations that are set up to establish mitigation ratios will probably work, because they are not an all -or- nothing situation; and you're taking, in most situations, a case- by-case look at them. Ted Brown Let me start by saying that from the devel- oper's point of view, the difficulty that we have with a,§404 program is not the notion that wetlands do not have value, or the notion that they should be regu- lated at some level, or the notion that we should be sensitive to wetlands as we plan our communities. The difficulty is that the pro- gram. as constructed, does nothing to recognize that wet- lands have different values. If you start from the very fundamental truth of that state- ment and look at the regulatory scheme that has been im- posed on the country, you recognize that government is spending a disproportionate amount of the tax revenue to regulate all wetlands equally, when really some of these ought not to be regulated with the same intensity as other